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This year we are offering more 30 minute staff development Tea and Technology sessions! These informal, bite-sized sessions provide staff the chance to learn something new in just half an hour, whilst enjoying a complimentary cup of tea or coffee!

Bring Printed Materials to Life with Augmented RealityWeds 1st March 10:30-11Augmented reality has increased in popularity recently, with crazes such as Pokémon Go capturing everyone’s attention. This session will look at an app which allows you to create your own augmented realities and make printed materials spring to life with digital content.

The Course Awakens: Find or Create VideoThurs 4th May 10:30-11In a classroom far, far away (JD13), Meet BOBa Fett and Princess LYNDA and learn how to harness this software alliance to combat the dark side. COLLABORATE with your students or colleagues wherever they are in the universe, use Lecture CAPTURE to ensure your teaching force is strong and guides your students, and meet C-3PO’s best droid friend the 360 cam!

Assistive Technology at Edge HillMon 15th May 9-9:30A range of Assistive Technologies are available to staff and students. This session will focus on Text to Speech software, which can be used to convert written text into spoken word, and can help with blended reading or proofreading. It will also cover Mind Mapping software, which is particularly useful for visual learners to plan tasks.

Clinical Education, now housed within the Faculty of Health and Social Care, re-won a tender in March 2015 to deliver the Postgraduate Certificate in Workplace-Based Postgraduate Medical Education from September 2015. With this came an overhaul of the way that the marking and grades were managed within Learning Edge and as a result a more streamlined, transparent and efficient way of working has been adopted.

Electronic marking had been used for some time but results were calculated on a feedback sheet and manually emailed back to the student. This was excessive work that had the potential for error for the bank of Associate Tutors (ATs) that taught and marked on the course.

As of September 2016 Turnitin was used as the primary platform for submission and included formative and summative use of the tool – formative for students to check their originality report and summative for the staff marking the work.

Intelligent use of the Grade Centre also followed. Here is a summary of the tools and functions that were integrated into the process:

Smart Views;

Enables filtering of the Grade Centre so that each tutor only has to display their own students. In the module, each tutor has approximately 15 students within a group and it is the ATs role to manage, track and mark these students. The groups are called Learning Sets (LS) and there may be as many as 12 LS in a cohort! Being able to filter this list of 180+ students is highly beneficial.

Creating Columns

Extra columns are created to track the completion of ‘Compulsory Discussion Activities’. It’s a requirement that all students on the module complete 75-80% of the discussions to complete the course. By putting a mark (usually a ‘Y’) in the cell for that student in the Grade Centre, a quick glance is all it takes to see which students aren’t engaging and who might need a ‘nudge’. A column is also created for the students’ Learning Set number so that when viewing the Full Grade Centre you can see who may not have been allocated to their Learning Set Group – especially helpful as sometimes students can be quite late to enrol and may miss being placed in a Group.

Deleting the Total Column

The ‘Total Column’ is a default creation and Clinical Education doesn’t use it – so it has to go! The Total Column can be removed once the ‘External Grade’ function is moved elsewhere – we move it to the ‘Weighted Total’:

Weighted Totals

The Weighted Total is thus made the External Grade. The Weighted Total is set up so that the 2 assignments that students are required to submit are given a weighting coordinated with the Module Handbook (for example 50%-50% or 70%-30% etc). This helps with calculating an overall grade average – especially if one assignment is good and the other not so good. The only issue here is that if one assignment fails then the Weighted Total may still record a pass overall as the ‘other’ grade might pull the calculation up. This involves checking that both assignments are at least a pass before assuming that the student has passed overall.

Grading Schemas

In Clinical Education we make use of the ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ displays for results. The Primary is the figure given to the assignment (out of 100%) the Secondary display converts this into a Postgraduate scale that will identify ‘Distinction’, ‘Merit’, ‘Pass’ and ‘Fail’. The Grading Schema works this out across the columns its applied to in the Grade Centre.

Grading Colours

This makes quick glances easy! Colour coding the cells in the Grade Centre helps identify where there is a submission requiring marking, and where students have achieved a Distinction, Merit, Pass or Fail. In conjunction with the Smart Views, tutors marking can be tracked easily by the Module Leader. It can also produce a nice overview of what the students are achieving.

Tidying up

Finally, a bit of tidying up. As the Grade Centre is quite busy then any unnecessary columns may as well be removed. The only column that we remove is the ‘User ID’ which is in fact a duplicate of the Student ID although the ‘Availability’ and ‘Child Course’ columns could also be reasonably removed.

GradeMark in Turnitin has also helped streamline the marking process. Using quick comments, general comments and particularly utilising Turnitin Rubrics tutors have found an ideal way to create and leave feedback for their students. Using the Smart Views in the Grade Centre helps tutors to focus just on their own Learning Set of students.

So as can be seen a number of mechanisms can be used (you don’t have to use all of them by-the-way!) to help with the management of a module or course.

Learning Technology Development have created a number of e-packages and guides to help you incorporate the above tools into your own courses:

“GradeMark has been a really useful innovation on our programme. I run a module where we have multiple associate tutors engaged in the first marking process. It’s been really helpful for them from a quality assurance process point of view to be able to look at the rubrics as they are marking ensures a more rigorous and equitable application of the grading criteria. It also, as module leader, helped me to quality assure the marking process because I can see how first markers have arrived at the grades that they have through the use of the rubric.

It’s also been a useful development tool for the associate tutors themselves. They’ve been able to look at the feedback added by other associate tutors and that helps them benchmark the quality and quantity of their own feedback against that of other markers on the module and also ensures a more consistent experience for students and its allowed me to evaluate and quality assure the marking process much more thoroughly than I would have been able to do previously.”

It was only a few months back when we introduced the new update for Qwickly Attendance (online Register System) to our 2016 Learning Edge Summer Upgrade. Many of you attended the staff development sessions we delivered back in August and the feedback we’ve received about the new features has been superb . Though many of you might already be using Qwickly Attendance to simplify, manage and monitor student attendance. We’d like to invite you staff to join our Early Adopters Pilot for Qwickly Attendance (click to open pilot brief).

Over the next few weeks we are looking for staff to join this pilot! All staff involved will receive close support from the LTD team to work with you and explore how it can improve your register workflow and provide you with all the training and support you’ll need along the way (either group or 1-2-1).There is not preference if you have starting using the tool or simply just thinking about starting to use it in your course or programme.

What are early adopter’s committing to?

In return for participating in the pilot you will be asked to provide feedback on your experience and the technology in Janurary 2017. We’re hoping your suggestions will provide product feature enhancements! Your feedback will also be shared with colleagues across the University. Exampling how it was used and what impact it had for staff and students.

So how to get involved?

Email: ltdsupport@edgehill.ac.uk with the subject line: ‘Qwickly Attendance Early Adopter Project – Expression of Interest’ & provide the following details in the body of your message:

Name

Faculty

Department

Programme Area

We really hope to hear from you soon! Feel free to email LTDSupport@edgehill.ac.uk or phone us on Ext 7754 and we’d be more than happy to answer any questions or just get in touch if you would simply like to know more!

This month the Faculty of Health & Social Care (FoHSC) – with the added support of their Senior SOLSTICE Fellow (Laura Taylor) – introduced a brand new resource to provide its staff with the latest in e-learning tools and resources to help deliver ‘technology enhanced learning’ to its students.

The Digital Productivity Lab is a quiet work space for all FoHSC staff that gives access to every available e-learning resource within the institution, including the provision of audio and video peripherals. Located next to the main reception within the faculty building, the lab offers services exclusive to both academic and support staff within the faculty. FoHSC staff can either book the lab to work independently or to schedule private bespoke 1-2-1 sessions with one of their Faculty Learning Technology Development Officers (LTDOs).

The Digital Productivity Lab currently offers all FoHSC staff a shared platform to….

To help faculty staff identify key people, places and processes currently in place. Learning Services and Laura Taylor have collaboratively developed a TEL Community reference tool (see below) to support staff who wish to seek support from specific advocates and enablers.

For full details and to book on a session, click on the appropriate title.

Electronic Management of Assessment – Using the right toolsFriday, 26 February, 2016 – 14:30 – 15:30
Electronic Management of Assignment (EMA) refers to the tools by which a student submits work online for storage and retrieval by academic, administrative or other staff for marking, feedback or review. One of the key aims of EMA usage is to enhance the student experience……….EHU’s Baseline: This session addresses all the Baseline and Baseline + elements of the Assessment and Feedback categories.

…….. this is what recent attendees said; “A supportive session on the benefits and possibilities of electronic submission. marking and data curation” “Excellent intro to the systems available on Blackboard for EAM. Will take the info to inform my own development sessions for staff in FoE.”

Getting Started with Learning Edge – Essential Skills for Tutors Using BlackboardThursday, 10 March, 2016 – 10:00 – 11:30
This foundation workshop aims to introduce teaching staff to the essential skills necessary to navigate Learning Edge, upload and create files, set up student content and communicate with students………….EHU’s Baseline: This session addressed most of the Baseline and some of the Baseline + elements across all seven categories.

…….. this is what recent attendees said;“A straightforward introduction to blackboard that has given me the confidence to create blackboard pages.”“another excellent session, well paced and delivered with useful follow up notes.”

Collaborate; Find out what it is and how it could help you? (Digital Practitioner)Monday, 14 March, 2016 – 12:30 – 13:30
Blackboard Collaborate is a real time (live) web conferencing platform which allows the facilitation of teaching and learning, offices, conferences and meeting spaces on the web or on mobile. This rich platform is available for all Edge Hill staff and students ……..EHU’s Baseline: This session addressed two elements of the the Baseline ++ Student Participation and Engagement category.

…….. this is what recent attendees said; “Technology in action – taking the classroom out of the classroom!” “A truly beneficial resource that could be the future for personal tutors and distance learners. As well as providing virtual work placement experiences and interviews.”

Digital Tattoo (Digital Practitioner)Friday, 18 March, 2016 – 13:00 – 14:00
How we and our students present ourselves online can impact on our reputations and employability. In this session we will find out what is online about ourselves, have conversations about how we can improve our reputations ……….EHU’s Baseline: This session addressed one element of the the Baseline ++ Student Participation and Engagement category.

…….. this is what recent attendees said; “I think this is a session that everyone can benefit from and provides useful information that we can pass on to students with regards to developing a positive online presence.” “I really enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the elements of this presentation / session and the potential impact for myself and the student experience. A thought provoking session”

You can view our programme and plan your sessions for the next few months by using the booking system. Most sessions are either held in the G2-ICT training room, Ground floor, LINC Building or as online webinar using Collaborate.

Can’t see what you want?

Beyond the advertised staff development programme, Learning Technology Development (LTD) can deliver fully tailored bespoke sessions on Learning Edge (Blackboard) and other online, mobile or classroom technologies. Through discussion LTD will, in partnership with yourself, develop a session to correspond exactly to your department’s and/or programme’s needs and processes.

For further information on anything relating to learning technologies or to arrange a consultation for a bespoke session, please contact either your faculty’s dedicated Learning Technologist or contact our (LTD) central support on LTDSupport@edgehill.ac.uk / 01695 650754 x7754.

Andrea Wright – FLM3023 (CW1)
This summer, for the first time, Film Studies moved over to marking using Turnitin, and we decided that we wanted to make that marking as useful to the students as possible by indicating how they were scoring in relation to the grade criteria of 0-100, how well they were meeting the LOs and also by preserving some personal feedback that we have always used and been praised for by external examiners.

After help from Martin and Carol [in the Learning Technology Development Team], it became clear that rubrics, in conjunction with quick marks and a personal comments would be the best way to achieve this. We removed the numerical scoring from the rubric and used our existing levels 4, 5 and 6 grade descriptors to create three generic rubrics that could be shared with all the module leaders. Each of the module leaders then added the specific LOs for each of their assignments to the rubric and attached it to modules. That way, all students in each level would score against a common criteria and also specific LOs for each module.

In terms of the quick marks, while many of the general, provided ones are useful, there are also certain things that Film Studies regularly comments on – including italicising in film titles, making sure there is a reference for each film, adding names of actors, how to handle quotations and so on. I asked around the team and created a collaborative list from the feedback. I then created a new quick mark set and shared this with the team in addition to the rubric.

The overall result is that we have a good, standardised way of approaching marking across the programme and students can expect a consistent experience across the modules that they are studying. So far, student feedback from the third years has been overwhelmingly positive and a number have commented, in particular, that they have found the marking very clear and beneficial.

If you are interested in following in Andrea’s footsteps please get in touch with the Learning Technology Team in Learning Services and we can show you some other examples of what other departments are doing with rubrics and you can see if you would benefit from adopting a similar approach.

For full session descriptions and to book on a session, click on the appropriate title below:

Quick and Easy ScreencastingTuesday 30 June 2015 – 12:00 – 13:00Screencasting has become far more accessible to everday users. You no longer need expensive software to capture your screen when doing demonstrations, inductions or in your general teaching and learning materials. This session will show you some of the tools you can download or access for free and once you’ve captured your video, where you can place the file.

Collaborate: Find Out What it is and How it Could Help YouThursday 23 July 2015 – 12:00 – 13:00Blackboard Collaborate is a real time (live) web conferencing platform which allows the facilitation of teaching and learning, offices, conferences and meeting spaces on the web or on mobile. This rich platform is available for all Edge Hill staff and students.

Collaborate: Online Teaching and LearningTuesday 28 July 2015 – 13:00 – 14:00This online session will give you first-hand experience of being a participant on an online teaching webinar using Collaborate software. This virtual training session will give you a general overview of how a Collaborate session looks and feels. You will have the opportunity to interact in demonstrations of the essential teaching tools.

Collaborate: Online Personal Tutoring in a Private Virtual OfficeWednesday 29 July 2015 – 13:00 – 14:00This online session will give you first-hand experience of personal tutoring in a private virtual office, using Collaborate software. You will have the opportunity to interact in demonstrations of the essential tutoring tools.

Can’t see what you want?Beyond the advertised staff development programme, Learning Technology Development (LTD) can deliver fully tailored bespoke sessions on Learning Edge (including Blackboard) and other online, mobile or classroom technologies. Through discussion LTD will, in partnership with yourself, develop a session to correspond exactly to your department’s and/or programme’s needs and processes.

For further information on anything relating to learning technologies, or to arrange a consultation for a bespoke session, please contact either your faculty’s dedicated Learning Technologist or contact our (LTD) central support on LTDSupport@edgehill.ac.uk / 01695 650754 (x7754).

Recently, I popped into the Department of English and History to discuss the upcoming academic year (Yes! we really do start that early!) and as a result of a brief conversation about what the department needs from Learning Technology, we came up with a great idea for me to be based in the department for portions of time through the two upcoming busy marking weeks.

Turnitin, Grade Mark, Grade Centre and Learning Edge can become a little overwhelming when all those submissions land. So the best way to support academics was for me (as the Learning Technology Development Officer for English & History) to be stationed in the department during certain times.

Quite often a problem or question can be solved so easily by simply saying – “could you just take a look at this?” Usually at the end of a phone or email it seems like it’s a game of 20 questions just to get to the beginning so that you’re both at the some point. Being able to quickly pop into a tutor’s office or to quickly bring it up on a PC together cuts out so much description time!

I also had the chance to meet some colleagues who I’ve never had the pleasure to meet before. We worked through lots of interesting ideas and Learning Edge ‘wish lists’, tackled some little (and some bigger!) problems that staff had had and all in a very timely manner and no hot ear from being on the phone for 20 minutes!

I had the company of Sheila Lewis in the admin department and the staff made me feel very welcome while I was there. I was even treated to a home-made custard cream! (Thanks Andy!)

As a result I now know the department even better than before! They know the areas I can help them with and hopefully the marking regime was a little easy. In addition, I’ve committed myself to a game of ‘Marrying Mr Darcy’ one lunchtime at the end of June!

If you have a particular interest in having a member of LTD stationed in your department at key times during the year, speak to your departmental LTDO (listed below) and find out if they can be on location for you to help ease any technology woes!

In the Learning Technology Development team we’ve recently completed the early adopters’ project in the use of iSpring. Following on from Sertip and Maggies previous videos, we would now like to introduce Carl Simmons from the Faculty of Education.

Carl shares his experience and advice from the iSpring Early Adopters project. He tells us how his department uses iSpring to transform their existing traditional external facing resources into a format that supports accessibility for students out on placement. Carl also describes how support from Learning Technologists can help you overcome any obstacles and enhance the students’ learning experience. Take a few moments to view our third and final video case study.

iSpring Early Adopters Project: Video Case Studies 1 & 2

The video case studies powerfully illustrate the positive effect that technology can have. Their words describe how the use of iSpring can offer huge benefits to the student learning experience.

At Edge Hill we have built up a critical mass of good practice that can be accessed by staff who are thinking of incorporating these technologies into their courses. If you have been inspired and would like to learn more your Learning Technologist can help.

…and you have access to a wide range of user guides on eShare and beyond:

For full session descriptions and to book on a session, click on the appropriate title:

Building Your Personal Learning Environment (Digital Practitioner)Thursday, 30 April, 2015 12:00 – 13:00A personal learning environment is created by a learner, using the tools that they choose, to manage their learning and communicate with other learners. ……. We’ll look at tools like feed readers such as Feedly, social networking sites such as Twitter ……………

Classroom Voting Systems (Digital Practitioner)Tuesday, 19 May, 2015 – 12:00 – 13:00Classroom voting systems are used in a variety of ways, with aims such as increasing engagement, allowing students to answer questions in class anonymously, to check understanding of concepts, or to start group discussions.

Can’t see what you want…….?Beyond the advertised staff development programme, Learning Technology Development(LTD) can deliver fully tailored bespoke sessions on Learning Edge (Blackboard) and other online, mobile or classroom technologies. Through discussion LTD will, in partnership with yourself, develop a session to correspond exactly to your departments’ and/or programmes’ needs and processes.

For further information on anything relating to learning technologies or to arrange a consultation for a bespoke session, please contact either your faculty’s dedicated Learning Technologist or contact our (LTD) central support on LTDSupport@edgehill.ac.uk / 01695 650754 x7754.